The world's attention is on Japan. The devastation from the earthquake and tsunami and the unfolding nuclear crisis is literally woe on treble woe, and truly difficult to comprehend. Food, water, shelter, safety, help and donations, are desperately needed. Other than prayers and hopeful thoughts, poetry is the only tangible offering I can offer at this moment.
The following are from Eric Selland's blog The New Modernism: Japanese Modernist & Avant-Garde Poetry, Translations, Explorations which I located this morning in my search for contemporary Japanese poets.
The Island
Going ashore on the island the man finds amongst the crags large arched fragments of bones belonging to beasts and fish bleached by the sun as it rotates the shrunken map of a black octopus head the coast of the eyes of the man who gradually becomes horizontal is like the acute angle of the moonrise let us forget now in extremely high-definition the eggs of the seabirds advance why is there no music at a time like this so when the arc of insomnia takes shape the distant hands and feet the man flings out barely move on this occasion from the lower extremity the dimensions of the island begin to narrow this place is most certainly the nest of tomorrow’s setting sun for the phantom birds who do not take flight magnified at the man’s side the entire surface of the eggs exposed to the intense light search as one may, not a trace of even one fingernail of the adventurous human can be found he does not choose this Atlas from the interior of a skinny womb the man squeezes a bit of voice and some blood on the other side the winter waves continue to slip along the insulating material
Recovery
Chewing on pickled scallions that’s the time I’m partial to nestled in the deep folds of a hospital ward blanket I wait patiently neither for treatment nor for death but for the splendor of consumption it is April the bees wiggle their hips in fields and in skin laden with pollen the moon in its final days of erotic desire draws near since my crushed thighbone brings perpetual leisure I listen to the music of blood undergo phosphorization or discharge my vitality and then as a black staff show a scene from a deserted pastoral landscape pushed into a mountain of straw raising no cries of love two crows are made to fly off my sister visits me frequently and praises the malignant disease of the neighboring patient she strikes my lowered head momentarily attracting the explosion of a pomegranate I take a walk in the garden which is always frozen rather than the many cranes and flocks of nurses I approach an ugly woman I agitate her womb with an inelegant dictionary and voluptuous dreams next I take a whiff of an intense drug in a flash I am anointed with the balm of rebirth and assailed by a gradual death the notion of ready-made apparel is lost and I fall on my knees in the form of a camel which the woman believed since childhood to be a disgusting animal annoyances occur in every walk of life atop the stretcher upon which I am carried out it is a dawn in which the chafing of starched flesh and bone begins my thirst is mediated through my eyes and overflows from the swamp of ice beginning to melt I get wet up to my tail like an embryonic fish and all in one gulp drink the water down to the last dropfrom blog October 15, 2010 by ericselland Yoshioka Minoru: Prose Poems from Monks (1958) (tr. Eric Selland)
“From a Woman of a Distant Land” (Tōi Kuni no Onna Kara)
この国では死人を葬りません。お人形のようにガラ
スのケースにおさめ、家のなかに飾っておくのです。
Kono kuni dewa shinin o hōmurimasen. Oningyō no yō ni garasu kē
su ni osame, ie no naka ni kazatte-oku no desu. (39)
And in Angles’s rendering:
In this country, we do not bury the dead. We enclose them like dolls in
glass cases and decorate our houses with them. (23)
私たちは合唱しません。四人集まると四つのべつべつの
旋律がからみあいます。私たちはこれを関係とよびます。
それはつねに一種の「もつれ」です。もつれがほどけると
私たちは四方へ散ってゆきます。あるときはほっとして、
あるときは当感して。
Watashitachi wa gasshō shimasen. Yonin atsumaru to yotsu no betsubetsu no
senritsu ga karamiaimasu. Watashitachi wa kore o kankei to yobimasu.
Sore wa tsune ni isshu no “motsure” desu. Motsure ga hodokeru to
watashitachi wa shihō e chitte-yukimasu. Aru toki wa hotto shite,
aru toki wa tōwaku shite. (39)
We do not sing in chorus. When four people gather, we weave
together four different melodies. This is what we call a relationship. Such
encounters are always a sort of entanglement. When these entanglements
come loose, we scatter in four directions, sometimes with relief, sometimes
at wit’s end. (24)
from Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako. Translated from the Japanese with introduction and notes by Jeffrey Angles. University of California Press, 2010.
Night Mechanist (1924)
the café girl
is completely transparent
continuing her pink breathing
she makes her expensive finger shine
and hides mint-colored talk
in a lobelia leaf
while playing the table’s piano
dreamer of chairs and curtains
bohemian of a pitiful city.
———————————
from the shadow of curacao
and peppermint
she flashes a seven-colored heart
seducer with stunning matches
on stove chimneys
ties passion ribbons
and dissolves her lovers
into cash register buttons—
mechanist of splendid night
from Human Dismantled Poems (1926) Kitasono Katue – Poems (trans. John Solt)
April 2, 2010
Poem Therapy March 16, 2011 at 2:25 P.M.: in the ruins - Mark Conway
in the ruins
Mark Conway
we drank in the remains
of ruined buildings
and we sat in a cave or
wrecked houses on farms given back to the bank
listening to men who'd been raised
in ways that were lost
and we strained to make out
the use of their news
they were crazy or passed out
speed notched with a cross
they drank from the flask and the mouth
they came in and shook off the rain
inflamed and dismayed
calm and arcane
the least one seethed chanting whitman for hours
then wept at the dregs of the fire
foam formed at the edge of their lips
we drank and waited for something to drop
you and I looking and sifting
for signs written in wax
we were young we knew how to die
but not how to last
a small man who claimed he was blake raged
all night and probably he was
he had god in his sights
white crosses shone in our eyes or acid mandalic
in the ruins the men talked:
seraphic and broken
glowing with gnosis and rubbish
we sorted their mad sacred words
these dog-headed guides to the life after
and the life after that
For the first time ever, and I really mean ever, I am adrift in the melancholic sea of nostalgia. While I work, I usually listen to alternative music, but today I listened to an oldies station, and Journey's song Lights/City by the Bay came on, and the lyric, When the lights go down in the city grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back to 1978. For the rest of the afternoon I've been on the blue side. I don't remember anything specific about that year in association with this song, but Steve Perry's voice triggered something. Perhaps it's part of my journey back to myself in which once facet is letting go. I have no idea what I'm still holding on to from that time.
My entry into Conway's poem is as a dialogue with the past, finding a key to the meaning and import of events and experience, in the way that each generation holds the key to the lock box of their particular modality of understanding.
For example: on the way to work this morning I was listening to NPR about the latest update on the disaster in Japan, and one of the interviews was with a few people of the WWII generation from China. Initially I was surprised that a lot of the comments were angry or disparaging, and that many felt little sympathy, until the reporter put the comments in context to the Japanese occupation of Nanking, (to give a bit of perspective, years ago I read an account in which a Nazi general complained about the Japaneses atrocities inflicted on Chinese civilian).
We are creatures of our past lives. I remember having breakfast years ago with one of my father's friends and the man launched into a diatribe against the "japs". I suppose decades from now the older generation will still be railing against Muslim terrorists, regardless who is the enemy du jour.
Perhaps the starkest reality one faces in this life is that learning from the past is almost impossible, because we forget the past, other than our own experience, so quickly.
I love the final image of Cerberus leading the dead to the life after and the life after that. Each of us lead so many lives in this one lifetime. Why shouldn't we have an "after that" once death plucks us?
Mark Conway
we drank in the remains
of ruined buildings
and we sat in a cave or
wrecked houses on farms given back to the bank
listening to men who'd been raised
in ways that were lost
and we strained to make out
the use of their news
they were crazy or passed out
speed notched with a cross
they drank from the flask and the mouth
they came in and shook off the rain
inflamed and dismayed
calm and arcane
the least one seethed chanting whitman for hours
then wept at the dregs of the fire
foam formed at the edge of their lips
we drank and waited for something to drop
you and I looking and sifting
for signs written in wax
we were young we knew how to die
but not how to last
a small man who claimed he was blake raged
all night and probably he was
he had god in his sights
white crosses shone in our eyes or acid mandalic
in the ruins the men talked:
seraphic and broken
glowing with gnosis and rubbish
we sorted their mad sacred words
these dog-headed guides to the life after
and the life after that
For the first time ever, and I really mean ever, I am adrift in the melancholic sea of nostalgia. While I work, I usually listen to alternative music, but today I listened to an oldies station, and Journey's song Lights/City by the Bay came on, and the lyric, When the lights go down in the city grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back to 1978. For the rest of the afternoon I've been on the blue side. I don't remember anything specific about that year in association with this song, but Steve Perry's voice triggered something. Perhaps it's part of my journey back to myself in which once facet is letting go. I have no idea what I'm still holding on to from that time.
My entry into Conway's poem is as a dialogue with the past, finding a key to the meaning and import of events and experience, in the way that each generation holds the key to the lock box of their particular modality of understanding.
For example: on the way to work this morning I was listening to NPR about the latest update on the disaster in Japan, and one of the interviews was with a few people of the WWII generation from China. Initially I was surprised that a lot of the comments were angry or disparaging, and that many felt little sympathy, until the reporter put the comments in context to the Japanese occupation of Nanking, (to give a bit of perspective, years ago I read an account in which a Nazi general complained about the Japaneses atrocities inflicted on Chinese civilian).
We are creatures of our past lives. I remember having breakfast years ago with one of my father's friends and the man launched into a diatribe against the "japs". I suppose decades from now the older generation will still be railing against Muslim terrorists, regardless who is the enemy du jour.
Perhaps the starkest reality one faces in this life is that learning from the past is almost impossible, because we forget the past, other than our own experience, so quickly.
I love the final image of Cerberus leading the dead to the life after and the life after that. Each of us lead so many lives in this one lifetime. Why shouldn't we have an "after that" once death plucks us?
Artist of the Day: Quench Metal- Jennifer Atkins Lisa
Pendant - Jennifer Atkins Lisa Quench Metal
Pendants - Jennifer Atkins Lisa Quench MetalI discovered Quench Metal's jewelry during lunch break and spent the brief time exploring the website and blog. Jennifer Atkins Lisa's metal-worked jewelry, especially the button and porcelain cabochon's are absolutely charming.
Bio:
Born an artist and raised in Maine, Jennifer Atkins Lisa spent her childhood exploring hidden woodland treasures and creating youthful artwork. Her attraction to metals was apparent early. From cleaning her grandmother’s rings to polishing the brass cleats on her family’s boat, she discovered the allure of metals. During high school, she worked as a goldsmith at a local jewelry store. Introduced to soldering and simple metalworking techniques, Jennifer found her medium and passion.
Educated at the Rhode Island School of Design, Jennifer absorbed traditional techniques. From tool making to hollow forming, she developed her skills under the guidance of many accomplished jewelers and metal smiths. Jennifer continued to grow as a jeweler and acquired the fine art of marketing while employed at galleries and retail boutiques. Today, Quench Metal works is the result of all these experiences combined.
If you'd like to see more of Quench Metal, click the web and blog links.
Poem Therapy March 15, 2011 at 2:38 - Hymn by Gottfried Benn
Hymn
Gottfried Benn
That quality of the great boxers
to be able to stand there
and take shots,
gargle with firewater,
encounter intoxication
at sub- and supra-atomic levels,
to leave one’s sandals at the crater’s lip
like Empedocles, and descend,
not say: I’ll be back,
not think: fifty-fifty,
to vacate molehills
when dwarves want space to grow,
to dine alone,
indivisible,
and able to renounce your victory—
a hymn to that man.
This poem brings to mind Janis Joplin's lyric "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." It suggests that to be truly free you either have to renounce all attachments to the world, (possession, pride, achievement, fear, relationship, reputation), or that you have to be at solid bedrock bottom with no other direction than up available.
Either way, it's one giant leap into the fiery unknown. How many of us are brave enough to jump? Ready? onetwothreejump!
And just in case you don't believe that everything old is new again, Empedocles came up with his own "survival of the fittest" theory two thousand years before Darwin, and "sum of all things in the universe is constant", which as you know still jives with Einstein's principle of mass-energy conservation. That he lept into an active volcano is of interest as well. In the case you want to know what would cause a man to jump into a fiery pit, click here and here.
Gottfried Benn
That quality of the great boxers
to be able to stand there
and take shots,
gargle with firewater,
encounter intoxication
at sub- and supra-atomic levels,
to leave one’s sandals at the crater’s lip
like Empedocles, and descend,
not say: I’ll be back,
not think: fifty-fifty,
to vacate molehills
when dwarves want space to grow,
to dine alone,
indivisible,
and able to renounce your victory—
a hymn to that man.
This poem brings to mind Janis Joplin's lyric "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." It suggests that to be truly free you either have to renounce all attachments to the world, (possession, pride, achievement, fear, relationship, reputation), or that you have to be at solid bedrock bottom with no other direction than up available.
Either way, it's one giant leap into the fiery unknown. How many of us are brave enough to jump? Ready? onetwothreejump!
And just in case you don't believe that everything old is new again, Empedocles came up with his own "survival of the fittest" theory two thousand years before Darwin, and "sum of all things in the universe is constant", which as you know still jives with Einstein's principle of mass-energy conservation. That he lept into an active volcano is of interest as well. In the case you want to know what would cause a man to jump into a fiery pit, click here and here.
Artist of the Day: Free Spirit - Shira Sela
Free Spirit - Shira Sela www.shirasela.com shira.etsy.com
This illustration by Shira Sela reflects the exact state of being I'm inhabiting today. I am about to embark on a journey in six hours. I like to think of it as a journey back to myself. It's been a very long time since I've been called a free spirit. The last time I can recall was the summer of 2003 at a novel workshop with Jonis Agee. She wrote free spirit next to my name. I remember being surprised, and inwardly flattered. I'd like to get back to the place where my creativity, which I think of as my spirit, is truly free.
For more information about the featured artist, click on the links provided under the illustration. I've included her bio. here.
Bio:
I am an illustrator and designer. I work with both traditional and digital mediums and I love to use inks, markers and pastels as well as various graphic and illustration software.
The Coffee Project - February 25 - March 13, 2011
March 13, 2011.
March 11, 2011.
March 7, 2011.
March 6, 2011.
March 4, 2011.
March 2, 2011.
March 1, 2011.
February 27, 2011.
February 25, 2011.
Fat Tuesday Winter Wonderland
March 8, 2011.Other than the Utah Art Festival's Tardi Mardi Bash, Fat Tuesday slips by without much fanfare. The only thing really letting it rip in my neck of the woods, was the weather. It snowed relentlessly.
Here's a great New Orleans site on all things Mardi Gras. Be certain to check out the Mardi Gras History/Indians. The costumes are fabulous! Also, if you haven't checked out HBO's Treme, tonight's a good time to start.
I know I'm going to head to the store and find as much decadance I can stomach, literally. I'm not much of a faster, but I am going to find at least one delicacy I can give up for forty days, (I have a long list of vices I should give up, so no trouble there).
Go ahead and Eat, Drink, and be Merry, until the stroke of midnight, because tomorrow the party's over!
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